New Delhi: Two Independent lawmakers of Karnataka- H Nagesh and R Shankar – have withdrawn support from the HD Kumaraswamy government. The move comes amid drama over the BJP accusing Kumaraswamy of attempting to poach on their lawmakers and shifting more than a hundred of them to a resort in Gurgaon near Delhi. In the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, the JDS-Congress combine has 118 lawmakers – a slim margin over the majority mark of 113. With 104 lawmakers, the BJP is far short of majority. The Congress has claimed that five of its lawmakers are missing and accused the BJP of launching another “Operation Lotus” – a term coined in 2008, when the BJP was accused of inciting several opposition legislators to defect to ensure the stability of its government headed by Yeddyurappa.
Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy told news agency ANI, “If 2 MLAs withdraw their support, what will be the numbers? I’m totally relaxed. I know my strength. Whatever is going on in media in the past week, I am enjoying.”
Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that in Karnataka, the BJP was playing its old game of poaching legislators of other parties.
“It won’t look nice for me to comment on the situation there. There are local leaders,” Banerjee said.
Asked about allegations that the BJP was poaching other leaders, the Trinamool Congress supremo said, “This is an old game… there is nothing new. There had been similar things in some parts of Northeast and Goa.”
The BJP would stake claim to power in Karnataka if the Congress-JDS coalition government falls, Union minister DV Sadananda Gowda said, hours after two Independent legislators in the state withdrew support from the seven-month-old Kumaraswamy dispensation. Gowda said the Kumaraswamy government would collapse on its own due to squabbling and that the Congress-JDS ”friendship” was on the “brink of divorce”.
